


Queen of Peace

by lostchildofthenewworld



Series: Continuum [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aegon and Rhaenys Targaryen Live, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Rhaegar Won, Elia Martell Deserves Better, Elia Martell Lives, Elia Martell-centric, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jaime Lannister Needs a Hug, Minor Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen, POV Elia Martell, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, no beta we die like Rhaegar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27749536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostchildofthenewworld/pseuds/lostchildofthenewworld
Summary: It stays until it goes, and it only goes when we let it go.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister & Elia Martell, Jaime Lannister/Elia Martell
Series: Continuum [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029861
Comments: 24
Kudos: 102
Collections: Southern Renaissance (Dorne Renaissance)





	Queen of Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song 'Queen of Peace' by Florence + The Machine. 
> 
> This is just the first story in this series. I don't want to commit to a fic right now because I am still quite busy, but I've missed writing so alas...here I am. Of course this is a Jaime & Elia fic because I can't stop myself from indulging hehehe (I thought of Baelor too but I have another fic idea for that based upon 'What The Water Gave Me') so yeah, here we.

Elia of Dorne sat in the Water Gardens, the laughter of children having long since stopped as she was alone at the pools now, her feet dangling over the edge as they made small ripples in the water.

Each day was a step at a time, and she needed moments like these, moments where she could just take a breath and have no one watching her. Watching her to see when she would finally crack because it had not happened yet, and they worried over her.

A small huff of air escaped her lips because she had been through too much, too soon to really feel like crying now. _What good would my tears do for me but make me dizzy?_ Elia was Dornish, to waste water on trivial things such as tears would be a foolish thing to do.

She did not cry when Rhaegar left Dragonstone for a place unknown after she had almost died bringing Aegon into this world. 

She did not cry, not even when Aerys had called for her and her children and used them as hostages against her brother.

She did not cry when she helped Rhaella after one of Aerys’ visits. Though she had dried tears, they did not come from her.

She did not cry when she was forced to watch Aerys burn men alive, nor did she cry at the threat she was given that should she look away, perhaps her little sun, Rhaenys would be forced to watch in her place.

She did not cry when Rhaegar had returned from who knows where (though she now knows he was in Dorne) and kissed her and promised all would be well before he marched off for war that he helped ignite.

She did not cry when Rhaegar had returned from the Trident with the missing Kingsguard in tow, along with his new wife and babe and he had told her that their marriage had been annulled.

She did not even blink in surprise when he told her that the original heads of the dragon came from the same father and mother and so too must his new heads.

Elia had long since learned not to cry, not when tears would do nothing to change the outcome that had already been predetermined.

Her feet jerked when she heard approaching footsteps but they were soft like the patter of a child and she turned her head halfway, with the sun warming the right side of her face as she spoke, “what is wrong my sweet?”

Most often Rhaenys would find her when she would find her quiet, her peace and her daughter would just sit with her in silence also. Elia tried not to think of why her daughter did so, knowing more wounds would be opened if she did.

“Am I your sweet?” A familiar voice spoke and Elia had fully turned her head as she stared upwards, her eyes squinting as the sun reflected off golden blonde locks before the man they belonged to had lowered himself to sit beside her.

“Ser Jaime?” She asked, though she was not sure why, for she could quite clearly see her once fellow hostage in the flesh.

“Here I am,” he spoke before he too removed his sandals, no doubt that had been given to him by one of the servants and dipped his feet into the water, releasing a drawn-out sigh.

They did not speak further for a few minutes, simply basking in the sun and enjoying the ambient sounds of the Gardens.

“You cut your hair,” Ser Jaime spoke bluntly.

Elia self-consciously reached up and touched her neck before her fingers gently touched her shortened curls that hung just above her shoulders.

“You know of the Dothraki?” Elia asked him and he nods his head, “well…I felt inspired.”

After she had returned to Dorne, she spent time reading, reading in the hopes of clearing her mind or in the wishful attempt that she would gain some clarity and she felt that she had. Records that had been kept and written in Rhoynar that detailed the different tribes and people Princess Nymeria came into contact to; that Lady Kerih, a maiden warrior once wounded a Dothraki bloodrider and he cut his braid and threw it down at her feet in acknowledgement.

She knew that the Dothraki only cut their hair after defeat and Elia had resonated with that and so she went to her baby brother’s paramour, Ellaria and asked her to cut her locks. Ellaria had seemed surprised, but she did as her princess bid and as she had cut away at Elia’s long curls, Elia had felt a little lighter afterwards.

“It suits you,” he murmured softly.

“I am glad you think so. May I ask why you are here? I had thought your lord father would keep you close,” Elia does not mention the reason they both know why Lord Tywin would do so.

“I wrote to my father to tell him that I went out in search of a bride.” Jaime looked down at her and she could not help but be pleased for her friend.

“Oh, looking for bride, now are you? I know the Hightowers have a daughter or two, and House Blackmont also has a daughter.” Elia began going through her mind for thoughts of eligible brides for Jaime, trying to recall faces and their dispositions to wonder if they would be a good match for him.

The war had taken many good men, too soon and so many women were left without their husbands, brothers and sons.

“Elia, do you see me?” There was something in Jaime’s voice that gave her pause as she stared at him fully, noticing that while they are both still young and he a few years younger, there is something in his eyes that has aged, like her own.

The kind of aging that comes from witnessing pure and utter madness, from hearing screams from a woman being raped, the kind of aging that comes from the Crone.

“Oh Jaime,” she is saddened at what she finds in him because she does not doubt like everyone else that is slowly moving on, they do not understand what it means to have been so close to the fire that was Aerys.

“They do not understand, some days I think they can see me and other days, I am just a ghost.”

Elia hisses softly to herself, before she reached over and grabbed a hold of his hand and squeezed it in camaraderie.

“It will be good then, for you to get a wife. A companion, someone you can confide into.”

“And who do you have? Who shares your secrets and burdens?” Jaime stares down at her and she turns her head back, back facing the sun in silence.

“To burden someone with these thoughts is cruelty unto itself, why pain others when I can hold it within myself?” Her question is tilted by her Dornish drawl and she tries to cover the bitterness of her reality with humor, but her solution is a sad one at that.

Because the truth of the matter is, she already feels like a burden, knowing ten thousand men died for her and her children, it makes her violently ill when she puts much thought into it. She often spends her days in prayer, praying for those souls to find rest because there is no rest for the wicked and when she thinks of evil men, of evil women – she wonders if they are as plagued from ghosts as she is.

 _Probably not_ , she thinks unto herself.

“You know, when he left, I wanted to go with him. To finally put my skills to use, to showcase my abilities and to stand with my brothers in white.” Jaime’s voice sounds far off even to her ears, but she remains quiet anyway to allow him to finish. “A part of me, a part of me wishes I did go and that I fell in battle, because I think the silence of death is much preferable to the silence of these ghosts.”

The sun is setting, the sky turning into different hues of orange, red and yellow, so alike the sigil of her house, of both their houses really.

“Jaime…” her voice is soft and gentle, like how she speaks to her Egg when he fusses in the night.

Jaime turns his head, his eyes boring down into her and she moves minutely under his scrutiny, for she has had enough of scrutiny to last her for a lifetime.

“He told me, he told me once when he visited Queen Rhaella. He said, ‘your mother screamed better than my sister.’ At first, I did not understand, I thought,” his voice is strangled as she watches as his left hand squeezes his thigh. “I am not the smartest man, not like my father but I can do the numbers. My brother, Tyrion.”

She knows that any words of comfort will not help him, but she squeezes and holds his hand, Elia is a small woman with little physical strength, but the emotional strength and fortitude she has – well she can give it out freely at no expense to herself.

The silence stretches on once again, as the sky gets darker and the ambient sounds of the night become louder in the absence of their words.

“Elia, have you given much thought about remarrying?”

Elia scoffs and she begins to move her hand before it is caught once more in his own larger grasp.

“Rhaegar annulled our marriage in secret and has declared my children bastards, Rhaenys’ birth had me tired and weak, Aegon’s birth almost killed me. Though my health is better, I doubt any man would wish to take the gamble. Though I cannot live on my brother’s grace forever, perhaps an older lord with an heir already will do.” Elia tears her gaze from his in silent anger, she wonders if she will ever forgive Rhaegar for what he wrought along with his piss poor excuse of a sire.

Though Doran nor Oberyn have not brought it up, Elia is not a fool and she has already begun to consider her options. She cannot live on Doran’s grace forever, though Rhaegar has offered to allow her to take back her bridal price, she wanted to laugh because how could there be a bridal price, when their annulment states they never even married. The fool.

“Here I am,” is all Jaime says.

Her lips twitch in humor because she thinks he is jesting, but when she noticed that his usual grin is not in place, her humor dies just as quickly as her marriage to Rhaegar had.

“Jaime. You jest, surely? I can give you nothing. Look at me!”

She snatches her hand out of his and stands up, her gown becoming wet from the water on her legs that she pulled from the pool. She tucks her hair behind one of her ears in frustration as she began to walk around slowly, a viper circling its prey.

“You would be a fool to entertain such an idea. I cannot give you a child, goodness the Seven knows your father did not want me in the first place, or we would have been married long ago – he would not want me now.”

At the mention of his father, Jaime jumps up from his spot on the colored stoned surrounding the pool and he towers over her and his hands bear down on her arms, keeping her still.

“It matters not what my father wants. When I first met you, when my sister and I took you and Prince Oberyn to see my brother, you had smiled and cooed at him, wishing him a good life. When Aerys had spoke to me that night and dismissed me, you saw me and asked me ‘are you alright?’. You gave kindness when there had been no reason to give any. Allow me to return the favor.”

Her shoulders sag, unbelieving towards his words because the only men she could trust were the men in her family, she could trust her brothers, she trusted her uncle Lewyn before he’d been killed in battle, but asking her to trust him?

Elia had trusted Rhaegar and that had left nothing but ashes in her mouth.

To trust a lion?

She stared up at the sky, feeling her eyes tightening as she tried to keep her gaze clear, it had only been less than half a year and she had hidden herself away in the Water Gardens since the war.

 _If you stay in the darkness too long, eventually the light to your path will fade._ Those are the words her father once spoke to her in her youth and how odd that she would remember those words now, as though he was whispering them in her ear now.

“I am afraid.” Here alone in the Water Gardens she could easily admit to this because she did not feel ashamed in doing so.

Elia was afraid, afraid to have people see her and watch as they covertly tried to speak about her and her babes.

“That is alright, so am I. But we are friends, are we not?”

His grip on her arm has loosened but he still had her in front of him, both their shortened hair flying wistfully in the wind as the evening chill was brought upon them.

Her friendship with Jaime had been brought about their shared experience and the conversations that they kept short out of fear of Varys whispering in Aerys’ ear. But those moments, where they could speak, where they could speak to one another and not feel as lonely as they both felt in the Red Keep -trapped and used against their family – had been a blessing in disguise to their emotional wounds.

“Yes, we are.”

She remains standing in front of him, but she makes herself brave and leans forward, her head resting on his chest. Though she no longer wears the crown as the wife of the crown prince, heavy is her head still.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this fic while vibing and drinking Freixenet Cava Sweet Cuvee so I was feeling pretty fucking good lmao. This series will be very drabble of like idk 1-2k words per update I add to this series. I just love Elia/Jaime, and I wanted to write them right now. I have this specific scene in my head and I want to work my way to it. 
> 
> Hope you are all doing okay and are being safe. 
> 
> I wish you well.


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